Thoughtfully and dreamily Lucio Sabini was dallying, stretched in his arm-chair beside his writing-table; a newspaper had fallen from his hand and lay opened on the carpet, his cigarette had gone out and he had not lit another. In the little, sympathetic H?tel Caspar Badruth, with its rather small rooms, every summer for some years he had always occupied the same room, one of the largest and most beautiful, with two windows looking on to the lake. He had divided the large room into two parts with a tall screen of Japanese silk, quaintly bordered with flowers and plants, animals and figures. On one side the bedroom was isolated, on the other quite a little salon had been devised, with his arm-chairs, writing-table, and little tables, and on this ordinary furniture Lucio had placed fabrics, vases, photographs, a shining silver writing-nécessaire, a red leather writing-case, and some pocket-books; in fact, everything personal and intimate that can conquer the discouraging banality of an hotel bedroom. Although the dinner-hour was drawing rapidly near, Lucio remained in his arm-chair, still in the dressing-gown he had donned an hour ago on returning from a walk. His servant, Francesco, who for ten years had followed him everywhere, and who in the ten years had especially learned never to direct a remark to his master except when asked, and then to reply in the least number of words possible, had noiselessly prepared on the other side of the screen what was necessary for his master's evening toilette, even to another cigarette-case full of cigarettes and a silk neckerchief to place under the overcoat, and silently and discreetly had vanished, shutting the door without noise. Probably Lucio Sabini had not even been aware of his presence. It was nearly eight o'clock. There was a knocking at the door. With a start Lucio, still distrait and far-away, called out, "Come in." "I am come to say good-bye," said Franco Galatà, entering, and offering his hand to Lucio.
Lucio conjured a vague smile, took the hand, looked for his cigarette-box, and opened it.
Franco Galatà, Prince of Campobello, was a Sicilian gentleman of thirty-five, who passed but two or three months of the year at Palermo and one at Licata, where his property was. The rest of the year he was always travelling, to Rome, Paris, Biarritz, Ostend; to Monte Carlo, Cairo, and St. Moritz, always mixing with the most brilliant society, knowing everything and everybody. Of medium stature, but lean and robust, very brown of countenance, with a little spiked beard, and two very black eyes, slightly bald, a very good fencer, a perfect and tireless dancer, speaking French and English, and even Italian, with a strong Sicilian accent, Franco Galatà, Prince of Campobello, at first succeeded in being attractive; but his attraction did not last. His acquaintances changed frequently, not from year to year, but from season to season. People with whom he was intimate for three months, on the fourth month greeted him no more, and he himself avoided them, proudly and mockingly. Friends liked him for a short time, and then suddenly spoke ill of him, and he, Franco Galatà, spoke ill of them. Women grew agitated in speaking of him, changed the subject, or withdrew. Lucio Sabini gave the Prince of Campobello a worldly sympathy, very uncertain and very superficial, in which at bottom there was doubt and repugnance.
"Are you leaving St. Moritz?" he asked courteously.
"I am leaving this hotel, dear Sabini. I am going to the Grand Hotel. I waited till they had a room free. This evening I am going to occupy it."
"Don't you like the 'Badruth'?"
"Oh, a regular box. There's nothing to do," exclaimed the Sicilian.
"What do you mean?"
"With the ladies, I mean to say," explained Franco Galatà.
"Don't you think there are beautiful women here?" suggested Lucio, becoming very cold and staring at the Prince of Campobello.
"Here? Very few: well acquainted with me and all, and I very well known to them. There's nothing to do," he repeated, with an even harder accent; "therefore I am going elsewhere."
"You travel to find women?" asked Lucio coldly, placing himself in unison with Galatà.
"For nothing else," affirmed the Prince of Campobello. "It is the only thing that interests me, pleases me, amuses me. I find nothing else better in life, such as it is," and he sighed lightly.
"And do one or many please you?"
"They all please me, even the least beautiful and the least young. Those who please me most are the ones I can't possess," concluded Galatà, with a slightly irritable accent.
"And do you never fall in love?" asked Lucio icily.
"In love? Not at all. I should be silly to let myself fall in love. Sometimes they believe I am in love; and sometimes love matters nothing at all to them," murmured the Prince cynically.
"Therefore you are going to the Grand Hotel," said Lucio, with a sneer.
"Naturally! What is one to do in a small hotel, with such few people as we are, all acquainted with each other? Everything is noted and observed, everything is heard. Hurrah for the large hotels, Sabini! For every reason there is nothing like them for what I want. Plenty of unknown or little known women; I unknown to them or little known; immense salons, immense halls, vast terraces—the earthly paradise, my friend, the paradise of adventures of a day, of three days, of a week, especially when they are on the point of leaving ... when they are unlikely to be seen again, you understand, they dare more easily."
The Prince of Campobello laughed, with his red, carnal, sensual mouth beneath his black moustaches; and his black beard shook a little, and his eyes shone with a desire that was ever satisfied and ever unsatisfied.
"But these women whom you meet on your travels, dear Galatà, are they easy to conquer?" asked Lucio, with cynical curiosity.
"Ah, not all certainly, my friend; but I try with all."
"With all?"
"No one excluded. It is my method. I assure you it is the best way."
There was a brief silence. Lucio did not interrupt him.
"I like you so much; come away with me to my hotel," said Galatà familiarly, not heeding the silence.
"You think so?" murmured the other, fencing, with the coldest politeness.
"I have got to know that there are some very eccentric Russian women, also two or three divorced English women, a demi-vierge or two. Come, we will amuse ourselves. Do not remain in this virtuous barrack."
"Oh, I shouldn't amuse myself there," declared Lucio, somewhat decisively.
"What? Don't you like women?"
"Yes; but one at a time."
"Really? And are you capable of loving the one? Seriously?" exclaimed Galatà, astonished and almost scandalised.
"I am even capable of loving the one seriously."
"For some time? Then you give her up?"
"Later, much later, I give her up ... when I have ceased to love her."
"What ingenuousness!" exclaimed the Prince of Campobello, astonished.
"Infantile, infantile! I have no spirit in these love affairs," said Lucio Sabini, with a sneer; "but I wish you every success there! You shall tell me about it afterwards when we meet."
"All you want to know. A pity you won't come."
They took leave of each other at the door. Coming down the corridor someone was advancing towards Lucio. He stopped beside him, while the Prince of Campobello, after a slight, sarcastic smile, which the new-comer did not see, withdrew with the elastic step of a good fencer and dancer. With a rea............